Entrepreneurs of the week: 9-year-old app maker, snakebite brewers, and the 'Squirrel Girls'

Jefferson Johnson gets very early start on entrepreneurship

Jefferson Johnson might not know code—or reach the kitchen cabinets for that matter—but that didn’t stop him from creating an iPhone app. At the age of 9. Using a noncoding game design platform, he developed a game called Treehouse Wars! where players defend their treehouse from being attacked by aliens with weapons ranging from speedy frisbees to water balloons. After six months of work, the youngster, now 10, released his game on iTunes’ App Store. Since that launch July 18, Treehouse Wars! has been downloaded more than 3,000 times in about 25 countries. But like any grizzled exec, he wasn’t satisfied. Jefferson also decided to launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign with the marketing help and vast network of his dad, serial technology entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, to pay for his computer programming tutoring and create an upgraded version of the game, with extra treehouse protection, for 99 cents. Within 24 hours, Jefferson reached his $1,000 funding goal.

Click through to catch a glimpse of other entrepreneurs with big business plans.

A pub favorite makes it in San Francisco

Over the last couple of months, a normal work day for Tommy Hester and Wilson Barr consisted of hitting as many bars and liquor stores in San Francisco as they could. It’s not all for fun. In June, the duo launched the first product of their startup, W.G. Barr Beverage Co. Thanks to the company, which Barr and Hester founded in 2011 after graduating from college, snakebite—a traditional English pub blend of beer and cider—is now available in a bottle. It seems the legwork is paying off. T.W. Pitchers’ Snake Bite—which ranges from $7.49 to $7.99 for a four-pack in liquor stores and between $3 and $5 per bottle in bars—has entered 145 liquor stores and bars since its June 17 launch.

From cradle to FDA

As CEO of Memphis-based GTx, Mitch Steiner operates a business born by investors that burns money for the promise of a new-drug payday. But the payday doesn't always come. His company had to abandon one drug after $100 million in development, thanks to FDA regulations. It now has two others in development, with a lot riding on FDA clinical trials. “By the time you’re done after 14 to 15 years of development, you could spend from $300 million to $1 billion per drug,” Steiner says. “That money has to come from somewhere, before you earn your first dime. But if it’s successful, the returns are such that one product alone can transform the entire company.”

A squirrel-free formula for success

When you are affectionately known as the “Squirrel Girls,” giving up the “Squirrel” part of your company name could be a devastating blow to an up-and-coming brand. Yet, Wild Friends Foods, the nut butter business started by Keeley Tillotson and Erika Welsh when they were University of Oregon sophomores, continues its meteoric rise from apartment college kitchen startup to selling in more than 1,000 stores across the country, including Whole Foods and Costco Inc. Wild Friends tripled revenue from last year and is on pace to take in $1.5 million in 2013. The company changed its name in March from Wild Squirrel LLC after Texas nut firm Squirrel Brand Holdings LP sued for trademark infringement. The case was eventually settled out of court, and terms were not disclosed. Wild Friends Foods retained their squirrel logo. The transition has been “a total breeze on the front end,” said Welsh, thanks to the power of social media.

A culture of winning

When MapQuest Inc. bought Nate Abbott’s startup late last year, it wanted more than just a new product. It sought to change direction, to make the Denver-based online mapping company more like the startup than the established online consumer brand MapQuest has become. Today, he’s MapQuest’s head of product, a role in which he oversees development of new features, and instills a software development culture that’s more akin to companies he saw launched around him in the 2011 Boulder TechStars incubator. Part of the change is cultivating what he calls “a culture of winning,” one that starts with a hunger to build the next big thing the way startup founders do, Abbott said. “Everywhere in this country, there’s two dudes in a garage trying to beat the same competitors we have, and they don’t have near the resources we do,” he said.